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Hello dear earthlings!

My name is Archie and I'm from Warwickshire in England!
I have been camping and spending basically my whole life outdoors, It started with going fishing constantly overnight with my dad, since then I have been going camping alot on holiday and I love it especially in the sand dunes of Wales in the U.K!

Recently I have been going camping nearer to where I live with my brother and a couple of friends, about an hours walk away into the middle of nowhere, next to a beautiful lake in a pine forest. When we started going I was using a £15 two man tent and my friends were using a £25 two man, we didn't really care that they weren't top quality, we were under the shelter of the trees and were just excited to be out of the town!
But recently we have gotten some DD camping hammocks and I cannot believe that I have been spending all these years on the floor! I set it up in my garden whenever I have a free day and spend it reading in it!
I have only been camping in it a couple of times so far but I adore it.

We are planning a walk across Wales for this summer that we are planning on lasting 6 days (including a few days on the dunes at the beach), we are in the process of sorting out all of the gear and as I have never done a camping trip in which I travel anywhere this is very different from what I am used to!

I have been using a big polythene sheet as a tarp, I am going to get a proper one for this walk as I have had to mod this one myself to attach it to the ropes, the only problem I have found is that if the wind is blowing in the direction of the tarp (which is about 3 meters away) I get little holes in it from the fires little sparks, I don't put my hammock up till when I am ready to go to sleep to avoid this. But I am wondering if tarps are resistant to this or even if anyone else has had this problem?

Hi Archie, Welcome.
You said that you get holes in your tarp from sparks. I've had fears of this for a long time, so I tend to set my sleeping gear quite far from the fire. Pretty much all the synthetics that are used in modern camping setups will melt with a spark landing on it. It can be especially bad here in Alberta, Canada, where most of the firewood we get is pine and spruce. They both crackle and spark a lot compared with some of the popular hardwoods. I've been fortunate to never have a spark land on my tent but I once had a spark go through the nylon pants I was wearing. Ouch!

welcome to Hammock Forums and hey from high point nc.
there is a ton of stuff here to read, learn and ask about.
if it's hammock related it's here or still waiting to be invented.
hang on and have fun.

Greetings (although I don't know about this whole "earthling" thing--I prefer to be called a treeling ). Glad to have you aboard! Please bring your camera and take pics of your walk; it sounds like it's going to be brilliant! I look forward to hearing about your future adventures.

One cannot always pick the best spots related to trees+wind+fire pit but here it a tip that might help:

Keep your tarp rolled up in some snake-skins when the fire is alive, the smaller area will present a much smaller target for the sparks to land on. As a bonus you can keep the tarp stowed this way until you actually need it. Deployment is super-quick if you notice the rain starting in the middle of the night and if the sky stays clear you have a heavenly view to sleep with.

If you keep your hammock in SnakeSkins too, it can take a few seconds to go from stowed-&-safe to Sleep-time. I find the most time-consuming part of setup is the fine-tuning of tarp-to-hammock positioning. With the Snakeskins you can setup your camp, then stow the tarp & hammock while keeping all the suspension lines in place.

It doesn't really solve your problem, but it works for me.

Welcome to the elevated lifestyle.

I ride a recumbent.
I like to HAM it up on the CW.
I use Linux.
I play go.
Of course I sleep in a hammock!